■f. 



#nr dl^oimtrg's P^ission in Jistorg. 



BV 



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W ]M . H , ALLEN. 

V 



% 



OUR COUNTRY'S MISSION IN HISTORY. 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVEEED AT THE ANNIVERSARY 



PHILOMATH^AN SOCIETY 



PENNSYLVANIA COLLEGE, 




September 19, 1855. 



BY 



WILLIAM H. ALLEN, LL.D., 

PRESIDENT OF THK OIRARD COLLEGE FOR ORPHANS. 




PHILADELPHIA: 
T. K. AND P. G. COLLINS, PRINTERS. 

1855. 



P' 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, 

Wednesday Evening, September 19, 1855. 
Dear Sir : — 

The Philomathaean Society of Pennsylvania College tender 
to you, through us, their sincere thanks for the truly chaste, 
eloquent, and instructive Address delivered by you this evening, 
at their request. Desirous of seeing it in a more permanent form, 
they have requested us to solicit a copy for publication. 

Your compliance will confer a lasting favor upon 

Your obedient servants, 

L. H. CROLL, 
W. FRANK. PAXTON, 
JOS. R. TITZEL, 
J. W. BITTINGER, 
W. HAY. 

To Wm. H. Allen, Esq. 



Gettysburg, September 20, 1855. 
Gentlemen : — 

Accept my thauks for the courteous terms of your letter, 
and for the honor it confers. 

I hesitated last evening to comply with your request, because 
the greater part of the address had been delivered elsewhere ; but 
the assurances which members of your Committee gave me, that 
the Society they represent will not treat its publication less indul- 
gently on that account, have induced me to place a copy at your 
disposal. 

Respectfully, 

Your obedient servant, 

WM. H. ALLEN. 

To Messrs. L. H. Croll, 

W. Frank. Paxton, 

Jos. R. TiTZEL, 

J. W. Bittinger, 
Wm. Hay, 

Committee. 



ADDRESS. 



GENTLEMEN OF THE PHILOMATH^AN SOCIETY: — 

I have selected a subject which is more closely 
allied with the interests of the present, and the 
hopes of the future, than with the memories of the 
classic past. In doing this, I have presumed that 
whatever concerns the human brotherhood will, if 
treated in the spirit of a scholar, and not of a parti- 
san, meet with a response in the fraternity of edu- 
cated men. I propose to speak of Our Country's 
Mission in History ; and if the observations I have 
to make should fail to commend themselves equally 
to American students and American citizens, the 
fault will not lie in the subject, but in the manner 
of its treatment. 

The fact forces itself upon our notice every day, 
that a new race of men, differing from the Anglo- 
Saxon, which is its basis — differing from the Celtic, 
German, and Scandinavian races, which are elements 
in its composition, is in process of formation in the 



United States. This fact must have a historical 
meaning ; and my purpose is to inquire whether it 
is not probable that Divine Providence has reserved 
for the American race some important work in his- 
tory, and to hazard a conjecture as to what that 
work may be. 

When a Grecian philosopher laid down, as the 
basis of his material and atheistic system, the pro- 
position, '■'■Nothing is made out of nothing,'^ his 
postulate was admitted, because it agreed with the 
testimony of the senses, which was at that time 
considered more reliable than any other. But mo- 
dern philosophy, Avhich has searched less for material, 
and more for final causes, has arrived at the conclu- 
sion that " nothing is made for nothing ;" and as this 
proposition harmonizes with revelation and science, 
and satisfies the reason of the learned and the faith 
of the unlearned, it is now generally received as 
true. It has become popular belief that if God 
works, he works for some end — that whatever he 
makes, is made for some purpose. 

When we study the structure of an organized 
body, we discover that every organ is adapted to 
particular uses, and that the health of all the parts 
depends upon a due performance of the functions of 
each ; and from this adaptation and mutual depend- 
ence we infer design and intelligence in its Con- 
triver and MedN^er. So, when we study social com- 
munities, we find that they are not mere aggregates 



of independent beings, but organized structures, every 
part of which is affiliated to every other, and has 
uses which are appropriate to itself and necessary to 
all the rest. As the eye cannot say to the hand, I 
have no need of thee, so one class of productive 
laborers in a state, city, or town, cannot say to an- 
other, we have no need of you. Each draws life 
and strength from all, and all from each. We must 
occasionally send for a physician, even at the risk of 
taking a remedy worse than the disease; we must 
sometimes consult a lawyer, though the fees be more 
than the claim; and we like to be christened, mar- 
ried, and buried by a minister of religion, hoAvever 
little heed we give to his teachings and admonitions. 
When we come to the question of independence, I 
think that the philosopher would be rather more 
helpless without the cobbler than the cobbler with- 
out the philosopher. Even professors of the fine 
arts, a class of laborers whom the age calls unpro- 
ductive, could not be spared: we may almost say 
they could least of all be spared. They are wanted 
to supply nutriment to a part of our being which is 
above the grade of material economy and utilitarian 
arithmetic. They minister to desires which lie 
deeper and soar higher than those which propound 
the every-day question, "What shall we eat, and 
what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be 
clothed'?" It is their office to give form to the ideal, 
and even to attempt an expression of the Infinite ; 



to elevate the soul through the medium of the senses, 
and to ennoble the sentiments by addressing the sen- 
sibilities; to refine, embellish, and dignify life, and, 
by making us familiar with forms of ideal beauty, 
to teach us to love and imitate moral beauty, which 
is the vestment of virtue. 

Now, just as every organ subserves a specific pur- 
pose in the animal economy, and as every class, occu- 
pation, and individual in a community is fitted for 
some good use in the social economy, so we may 
believe that every political society, every nation and 
race of men has been so endowed, and placed in such 
a relation with the rest of mankind, as to contribute 
something to the growth and progress of that vast 
organism which we call humanity. 

The history of a nation is not an aggregate of the 
biographies of the men and women who have com- 
posed it; for as the intellect, will, and conscience, 
which make up its political life and character, are not 
the sum, but the exponents of the mind and morals 
of its citizens, its history will have a certain unity 
and individuality. It will be the biography of a 
complex organism, constructed according to a defi- 
nite plan, for specific and determinate purposes. In 
like manner, universal history is not an aggregate of 
the particular histories of the nations and races which 
have figured in the world, but the development of a 
plan and purpose which Infinite Wisdom has devised, 
and which, under the divine guidance, every people 



9 

contributes to unfold. It assumes that the human 
species exists for some end and aim, above and dis- 
tinct from the ends and aims of the parts which suc- 
cessively compose it; while, at the same time, these 
parts are so linked together, and their forces so ad- 
justed, that, while they pursue their own interests 
and work out their peculiar ideas, they contribute to 
the general movement and progress of the whole. 

I am aware that, in these preliminary observations, 
the infallibility of writers who have ignored final 
causes in history is challenged. If the same authors 
were treating of scientific subjects, they would ignore 
final causes in nature. They could not conceive that 
the mechanism of the eye was arranged with any in- 
telligent view to its function of vision. They would 
deny that the web-feet of ducks were designed for 
swimming, and that monkeys have four hands to faci- 
litate climbing. They would subject all living crea- 
tures to some unintelligent and unintelligible law of 
organic development, which inheres in brute matter 
by accident, and works blindly on without aim or 
object. They would derive man from an ape; the 
ape from a wolf; the wolf, perhaps, from a rat; and 
the rat from a goose's egg; — and to obviate all difii- 
culty in obtaining the goose, they would give wings 
and legs to a serpent; derive the serpent from a 
worm; the worm from a monad; and vivify their 
monad with a current of electricity ! 



10 

But sober men, who reject the theories of La 
Marck and his plausible disciples of the school of 
the Vestiges of Creation, and who deem it more 
rational and probable that fishes were furnished v/ith 
fins to assist them in moving through water, than 
that the effort to move through water made the fins 
grow, will find no serious difficulty in concluding 
that the movements of humanity are at least as im- 
portant in the divine view as those of a fish, and 
deserve as well to be provided for; and that while 
every part of the universe is full of God, the sum 
of all the parts cannot be godless. 

If the Divine Intelligence does not control and 
direct the movements of history, according to some 
preconceived scheme and beneficent purpose, bring- 
ing forth good results even from national crimes, and 
"causing the wrath of man to praise him;" in a 
word, if there be no God in history, the condition 
of humanity is like that of a felon in a treadmill, 
moving forward always, but never advancing ; toiling 
upward forever, but never ascending. Then it is the 
doom of every successive generation to suff'er for the 
crimes and follies of its predecessors, rear up another 
generation to commit like crimes and endure like 
suff'erings, and die to give it room to sin and suff'er 
in. Then, too, all the blood of patriots and martyrs, 
which has been poured out upon battle-field and scaf- 
fold has been shed in vain; and all who have stood 



11 

for the right against the wrong, have lived and died 
in vain. 

We recoil from so cheerless a view of our destiny 
as this. Our reason rejects it; our moral sense 
abhors it ; our instincts revolt from it. Away, then, 
with the chilling philosophy which would frame an 
atheistic scheme of history, and make man the pup- 
pet of chance. Let us still cherish the steadfast 
conviction that we have a guide who sees the end 
from the beginning, and that we may discern in the 
providence of the all-wise the benevolence of the 
all-loving God. 

These general observations will, it is hoped, derive 
some' specific value from their connection with the 
main subject of the address. For if God reigns in 
history, he is raising up the American people for 
some historical purpose. Have we, then, reason to 
believe that this purpose, in the accomplishment of 
which our country is to be the instrument, is an 
' important one in the affairs of mankind ^ 

When we study the progress of civilization, we 
learn that in every great movement the influence 
of some one nation or race has been for the time 
predominant over all others; and this predominant 
nation or race has been, during the period of its 
historical activity, the standard-bearer of humanity. 
Is there reason to believe that the American people 
may justly aspire to this post of honor] 



12 

In attempting to answer this question affirma- 
tively, I appeal first to our national consciousness. 
As a people, we have a settled conviction that we 
are to perform no secondary part in the world's 
drama. Placed in the van of civilization, with a 
continent before us to stamp our impress upon, and 
an ocean behind us as a barrier against the forces of 
despotism ; with a population whose enterprise is 
restricted by no limits but those of the globe ; with 
the hope and strength of national youth, and with 
a history already rich in examples of statesman- 
like wisdom and heroic achievements, what won- 
der if we discover in these the signs of a manifest 
destiny ! 

This abiding consciousness of a vocation is some- 
thing more than the suggestion of vanity. It is a 
prophetic thought which reveals the future, and 
points with steady finger to the career of a patriotic 
and noble ambition. Without it, neither nations 
nor individuals ever become, in any large or appro- 
priate sense, historical. Those men who have left 
their mark upon their country and age, have always 
felt an assurance that they had been called, as by 
the audible voice of Jehovah, to a work, and that 
they had been endowed with ability to perform it. 
Not he alone, the conqueror of the East, who cut in 
pieces the knot which he could not untie; nor he, 
Rome's greatest enemy, who took an oath in boy- 



13 

hood at the altar of his country's gods, to live and 
die his country's avenger; nor he, who, in a tempest 
at sea, could quiet the alarm of his pilot with the 
characteristic words, "Fear not, you convey Csesar;" 
nor he, the deliverer of his Alpine home, who, when 
his boatman said, " It is impossible to cross the lake 
in such a storm as this," silenced him with the reso- 
lute reply, " I know not whether it be possible, but 
I know that it must be attempted;" nor he, who 
called himself the child of destiny, and on the morn- 
ino- of many a day of doubtful arbitrament, hailed 
the sun of Austerlitz as the harbinger of another 
triumph; — not only your Alexanders, Hannibals, 
Cffisars, Tells, and Napoleons, held and proclaimed 
this faith, but lawgivers and prophets, apostles and 
martyrs, reformers and philanthropists, all who, in 
every age and clime, have nobly dared and nobly 
done, for God and man, have felt and expressed the 
same. 

In like manner, every nation which has borne a 
prominent part in history for any length of time, 
has cherished an invincible belief that it had a 
destiny to fulfil; and this faith has always mani- 
fested itself on trying occasions in resolution, cour- 
age, and fortitude. We read this in the inscrip- 
tion upon the monument of the three hundred 
Spartans: "Stranger, go tell at Lacedsemon that 
we He here in obedience to her laws." We per- 
ceive this in the stern resolution of the Romans, 



14 

who, after the slaughter at Cannse, still regarded the 
banner which bore S.P.Q.R. as the symbol of invin- 
cible power, and who were willing to bid high in the 
Forum for the lands on which their enemy was 
encamped. We hear this in the words which Nel- 
son signaled to his fleet at Trafalgar, just before the 
battle commenced, and which were answered from 
every deck with shouts that rent the welkin, 
" England expects every man to do his duty." We 
observe the same in the simple but firm command of 
Wellington, when at Waterloo he saw his squares 
shake beneath iron hail and charging squadrons, 
" Stand, men, it will not do to be beaten; what 
would they say in England]" And we mark the 
resolute expression of the same spirit in the words 
which our own Taylor wrote to the Secretary of War 
when he led forth his little band from Point Isabel, 
" If the enemy oppose my march, in whatever force, 
I shall fight him." 

This national consciousness of a high calling, this 
prophetic aspiration after something which is be- 
lieved to be a mission, of which these examples are 
both signs and expressions, was never stronger in 
any people than it is in the Americans ; and without 
assigning to this fact more weight than it is justly 
entitled to, we may at least assume that it wiU help 
us attain the position among nations towards which 
it points, just as the presentiment of victory inspires 
a soldier with the courage which wiU be likely to 



15 

achieve it, and as any man's confidence in his 
ability to accomplish an object renders his success 
probable. 

But there are other indications that the standard 
of historical progress is to be borne by the American 
people. One of these is, our geographical position. 
" Westward the course of empire takes its way," is 
something more than a poetic fancy — it is a his- 
torical fact; and this fact is doubtless attributable, 
in part at least, to geographical causes. 

It is generally conceded that the human family 
was planted at some point in central or eastern Asia, 
from which it soon radiated in all directions. But 
when population had advanced eastwardly to the 
ocean, which men had not then the skill to navigate, 
it must have recoiled; and while lateral waves pro- 
bably turned aside toward the frozen North, and the 
torrid South, its main current must have flowed back 
toward the West, whither temperate climates and 
fertile lands invited. While these hardy, enter- 
prising, and self-reliant pioneers of the West, whose 
inventive faculties necessity had sharpened, would 
take with them the sciences, the useful arts, and 
such laws and institutions of the parent communities 
as were adapted to their condition and wants, they 
would leave behind them many of tlie defects of the 
elder civilization, and plant States which would start 
forth unfettered by prescriptive formulas, and soon 
surpass their father-lands in all the elements of 



16 

greatness and power. From these new communities 
other colonies in their turn would proceed further 
westward, and again leaving behind whatever had 
crystallized into immobility, sloughing off whatever 
had become effete, and retaining whatever was vital 
in every part, would move onward with a fresh im- 
pulse in the career of improvement. 

In this solemn march of four thousand years, our 
post is now in the front. We are rising upon the 
great tide-wave which has been steadily advancing 
through China, India, Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, 
and Western Europe ; and we know that as " there 
is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the 
flood, leads on to fortune," so there is also in the 
affairs of nations. Who shall say that the States 
which were founded by the Anglo-Saxon immi- 
gration into North America, will not hereafter com- 
pare as favorably with England, as the English 
people now do with their Saxon progenitors; and as 
the cities of Greece and Carthage did with the Phe- 
nicians who colonized them? 

Again, while our position is foremost in the line, 
we have the advantage of an eminently favorable 
locality. Our territory stretches from sea to sea, 
including the most desirable third of the continent ; 
and it is an article of our political faith, that if we 
bide our time, the whole will be ours — Cuba and aU. 
We are midway between the old world of Europe in 
our rear, and the older world of Asia in our front. 



11 

The American Ophir is opening to us the commerce 
of the East, a prize which has enriched every nation 
which has been able to grasp it ; and even the barred 
gates of Japan, as well as walled China, have been 
opened by the golden keys of California. The thou- 
sands of Chinese who are now on our Pacific coast, 
have come thither to shake hands and make our 
acquaintance. They are saying to us, " You are not 
the outside barbarians we had supposed; we Avill 
talk Avith you, work with you, and trade with you; 
we will shuffle off our wooden shoes, and permit our 
women henceforth to wear feet; we will pare our 
nails, and clip our cues; we will learn your sciences, 
practise your arts, adopt your worship, and then 
return to our homes with ideas which will astonish 
the mandarins." 

All this they will do, and more. They will break 
the shell of egotism in which three hundred millions 
of people have been so long incrusted. They will 
infuse vigor and activity into that living petrifaction, 
to which immobility alone has given permanence. 
With free commerce will go a free gospel, free 
institutions, art, science, letters, and progress, until 
the manhood of civilization shall revisit the land of 
its infancy, and the first great cycle of history shall 
be complete. 

Another indication that the American people are 
to play a star part in history, is their combination of 
dissimilar races. We learn from physiology that 



^*l ^ 



there is a law of nature, extending to all organized 
bodies, which makes the blending of certain varieties 
of the same species a condition of improvement. 
This law has been wisely ordained, so far at least as 
the human family is concerned, to make it for the 
interest of all classes of people to preserve friendship 
with each other, and, by checking the spirit of caste, 
clanship, and race, to promote peace on earth, and 
good will among men. 

History confirms what physiology teaches. It as- 
sures us that while the unmixed races have generally 
been stationary or retrograde, the mixed races have 
been progressive. The Chinese and Hindoos are 
examples of the former; the Greeks, Romans, and 
English, of the latter. In Greece, three distinct 
peoples united. First came the fierce and barba- 
rous Pelasgian from the North; next, the industrious 
and refined Phenician from the East; and last, the 
reflective, religious Egyptian from the South. The 
descendants of these diverse colonists grew up, flou- 
rished, and intermingled in that country, till they 
formed a race which was superior in physical strength 
and mental capacity to any other then existing — a 
race which combined the best qualities of all its con- 
stituents without their defects; the hardihood and 
heroic virtue of the North, without its rudeness and 
ferocity; the imagination, elegance, and commercial 
enterprise of the East, without its effeminacy; the 
speculative thought and religious veneration of the 



4 



19 

South, without its sordiclness and superstition. Such 
was the composition of that singularly acute and 
intellectual people, whose mission was to cultivate 
the practical intellect to an extent before unknown ; 
to bring down philosophy from heaven to earth ; to 
carry the fine arts to a degree of perfection which 
subsequent ages might strive to imitate, but could 
not hope to surpass; and by their literary, commer- 
cial, and military activity, to provide for approaching 
Christianity the vehicle of a universal langiiage. 

Let us glance next at the Roman, the man of iron 
frame and iron will. In him we find, first, the union 
of the rude Pelasgian with the polished Etruscan — 
strength wedded to grace. Next, if we may believe 
Livy, the off'spring of Roman fathers and Sabine 
mothers, people the Seven Hills. Other tribes of 
Italy in rapid succession, and afterwards foreign 
nations, are subdued as enemies, and- welcomed to 
political and social equality as friends. The policy 
of the state was the absorption and assimilation, not 
the destruction, of the conquered. It was not till 
after the race had accomplished its historical pur- 
pose, and a remorseless despotism had risen upon the 
ruins of the Republic, that a Roman historian could 
utter the reproach, " We make a desert, and call it 
peace." 

It is probably true that no people ever combined 
so many different elements as the Romans, and it is 
certain that none ever made so deep a mark upon 



4. -♦ 



20 

hnman affairs. It was their vocation to be the 
world's schoolmasters in legislation and jurispru- 
dence ; to demonstrate the force of the indomitable 
will; to combine activity with stability, extension 
with duration; and thus to build up for the dissemi- 
nation of infant Christianity the fabric of a universal 
empire. 

Look next at the nation which has done more 
perhaps than any other for the progress of modern 
civilization — England. The ancient Britons were 
Celts, savage and superstitious, but generous and 
brave. The Romans conquered them, and held pos- 
session of their island four hundred years. When 
Roman power had served out its time, and was about 
to give place to the fresh vigor of barbarian mind, 
the Saxon came — the stern, cold, granite man, robber 
of land and sea. Next came the warlike and hardy 
Dane; and finally the proud, chivalrous Norman, 
with feudal pomp and knightly courtesy, the aristo- 
cratic element of English civilization. In process of 
time, the gradual intermingling of these unlike 
stocks produced the modern English, or, as I prefer 
to caU them, the Anglo-Saxon race ; a people tena- 
cious of individual and political rights, inflexible of 
pui-pose, proud, stubborn, equally persevering in 
enterprises of wisdom and folly, justice and in- 
justice, freedom and oppression, and which, including 
its great American branch, has never been driven 



21 

from any soil on whose surface it had once firmly 
planted its feet. 

England, too, has her mission in history. She has 
been, and still is, the instructor of mankind in the 
principles of constitutional and representative govern- 
ment. She has been, and still is, a powerful cham- 
pion of those forms of Christianity which recognize 
the right of private judgment in matters of faith. 
She has also sown the seeds of that harvest of per- 
sonal freedom which has since grown up and will 
hereafter ripen in America. Without England, the 
United States could not have been. She has indeed 
loved and pursued riches, as Greece did glory, and as 
Rome power; but while doing this, she has deve- 
loped the industrial element of civilization, and added 
much to the physical comfort and material prosperity 
of mankind. 

Future history will doubtless show that the eager 
desire of wealth, which is the master passion of the 
Anglo-Saxon race, and which is everywhere stimu- 
lating invention and improvement, applying the 
sciences to all forms of productive industry, and pro- 
moting free intercourse among men by means of 
iron, steam, and electricity, has been directed by 
Providence towards the true aim of all progress — 
the moral elevation of mankind. You must make 
the toiling multitudes physically comfortable before 
you can make them intellectually wise, or morally 
good. In other and homelier terms, you must satisfy 



22 

the stomach and protect the person, before you can 
thoroughly cultivate the head and improve the heart. 

These examples, if I have not mistaken their 
meaning, teach us that when the Divine Being in- 
tends to use a people as the instrument of an import- 
ant work in human affairs, he does not take the old 
races whose ideas, opinions, and institutions have 
become so fixed and petrified as to lose all flexibility 
and elasticity. He seeks new and plastic materials. 
AVhen the chemist wants a new re-agent, he collects, 
mixes, fuses, and dissolves dissimilar bodies till their 
mutual action forms the desired compound ; and so 
the Divine Being (I use the simile with reverence) 
brings together from afar unlike peoples, and moulds 
them into a new race possessing qualities suited to 
his purpose. 

Such a race is that which is now overspreading 
the North American Continent; for, though the 
union of the different varieties of our people is in- 
complete, it has advanced so far that every Ameri- 
can, born upon the soil, has much in common with 
every other, though Anglo-Saxon blood may predo- 
minate in one, German in another, and Celtic in 
another. Each of these streams has received, and 
may continue to receive, healthful contributions from 
the rest. It is only when the foreign accessions to 
our population refuse to coalesce and identify them- 
selves with the native born in feeling and interest, 
and when they form combinations among themselves 



23 



either to preserve the spirit and prejudices of the 
communities they have abandoned, or to change the 
pohcy of our government, that they become a dis- 
turbing force in the body politic, and, like anything 
else which is indigestible, pernicious to the public 
health. The sturdy Anglo-Saxon suffers no detri- 
ment from having his sharp angles broken off, and 
the rugged features of his character smoothed down. 
He is weU fitted to be the conqueror of savage 
nature, and the pioneer of a new civilization; but a 
modicum of selfishness and ambition must be ehmi- 
nated; he must be made more continental and less 
insular; more of a cosmopolite and less of an ere- 
mite, before he will become the instrument to adorn 
that civilization with its crowning glory, its highest 
moral finishing of fraternal love between man and 



man. 



To advance this end the American race is forming, 
to become, as we hope and believe, the master-men 
of future history. Though our population is de- 
rived from numerous sources, we may presume that 
when it shall have become homogeneous, its leading 
characteristics will be Anglo-Saxon, modified by the 
influence of Celtic and German blood. The Anglo- 
Saxon will be represented in the practical intellect ; 
the Celt, in the feeling heart; the German, in spe- 
culative thought. The Anglo-Saxon will contribute 
indomitable will; the Celt, impulsive sensibilities; 
the German, steady, sterling common sense. The 



24 

first is the type of pertinacity; the second, of cou- 
rage ; the* third, of fortitude. The first has wit ; the 
second, humor; the third, imagination. The first 
has ambition; the second, generosity; the third, 
honesty. The first fights for interest; the second, 
for honor ; the third, for right. 

While the American race may not aspire to be 
that higher type of humanity of which philosophers 
have dreamed, as the next step on the ascending 
scale of organic development, we may expect that it 
will combine the enterprise, perseverance, and hardi- 
hood of the Anglo-Saxon, without his exclusiveness, 
haughtiness, and sullenness; that it will possess the 
docility, vivacity, and warm-heartedness of the Celt, 
without his rashness and improvidence ; and that it 
will exhibit the patience, stability, and integrity of 
the German, without his apathy. 

A race uniting such qualities as these, can hold 
no second place in history; and it is an easier pro- 
blem to determine what it ivill do, than what it can- 
not do. 

Before taking up the final question. What is the 
historical mission of the American people? let us as- 
sume that the ultimate aim of human progress is the 
moral renovation of mankind. This assumption may 
be fairly made, not only because most Christian 
writers on what is termed the philosophy of history 
have assumed substantially the same, but also be- 
cause it is difficult to conceive of any other object so 



25 

important as this, or so worthy of the Divine inter- 
position. Nor should we forget that inspired pro- 
phets of old predicted a reign of universal justice, 
and that Christianity itself has promised a millen- 
nium of universal love. 

The most authoritative of all teachers laid down 
the Golden Rule as the practical guide of moral 
conduct, and commanded men to love their neighbor 
as themselves. The observance of that rule, and 
obedience to that command, would be nothing less 
than the reign of justice and love. It is a melan- 
choly fact that the rule has never been generally 
observed, nor the command generally obeyed; but 
he who infers from this fact, and who dares to assert, 
that mankind, or a large majority of them, never 
will conform to that rule, nor obey that command, 
takes upon himself the tremendous responsibility of 
pronouncing Christianity a failure and a falsehood. 

Are we discouraged because, after eighteen and a 
half centuries, not one-fourth of the population of 
the globe have heard the tidings of peace on earth 
and good will to men, and because not one-fourth of 
those to whom the gospel has been proclaimed live 
in accordance with its precepts'? Then let us re- 
member that, however important time may be to a 
man, or to a generation of men, it is of no import- 
ance to that Being who does not exist in time, to 
whom the past and the future are ever present, one 
eternal 7iow. Guizot clearly perceived that He, " to 



26 

whom one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand 
years as one day," could wait for the slow ripening 
of his purposes, when he said that "Providence 
moves through time as the gods of Homer through 
space: it takes a step, and ages have rolled away." 

If, then, we admit that the triumph of Christian 
morals is the highest attainment of man in time, it 
may not be difficult to conjecture what will be the 
next movement of humanity in that direction. 

If I were permitted to draw a charcoal sketch of 
a plan of history, it would consist of five divisions or 
epochs, corresponding to the successive ideas which 
men have entertained of themselves: — 

1. Man as the child of a patriarch and the slave 
of a despot. The representative of this idea was 
oriental civilization. 

2. Man as a citizen, but the property of the State. 
This was the epoch of Greece and Home. 

3. Man and the State. Plere we follow Guizot, 
who makes this the epoch of modern Europe. 

4. Man master of the State, and personally free. 
This is the American epoch. 

5. Self-governing man, in the highest perfection 
of his moral nature which is attainable in the pre- 
sent life. This will be the prophetic or millennial 
epoch. 

The education of mankind might also be divided 
into five stages of progress, corresponding very nearly 
with the five epochs just named : — 



27 

1. The education of the imagination and specu- 
lative intellect. This was the work of the oriental 
schools. 

2. The education of the practical intellect and 
will. In this, Greece and Rome were the school- 
masters. 

3. The education of the religious sentiments. 
This commenced with the dawn of Christianity. 

4. Education in physical sciences and inventive 
arts. The object of this is to teach man the uses of 
nature, and to make him master of her forces. We 
are in the midst of this movement, 

5. Moral education, or the training of the heart, 
by the united agency of revelation and reason, and 
the highest triumph of both. 

Of course, it is not meant that each of these 
departments of the education of our species has 
been strictly confined to a definite period ; but that, 
while they have been all cultivated together to 
a certain extent, the advances which have been 
made in each have been more rapid and successful 
in some periods than in others. For example, men 
always studied nature and applied her powers to 
practical use, but it has been only within the last 
three centuries that these researches have taken the 
right direction, and produced the most conspicuous 
results. Philosophers studied moral science as ear- 
nestly before as since the Christian era, but they 
failed to educate the moral sensibilities of their dis- 



28 

ciples ; and, though the discipline of the heart is 
the proper work of Christianity, he who would see 
the accomplishment of that work in its highest 
beauty, must look forward to a purer epoch and a 
better age than the present. 

Anterior to the reign of Christian love there must 
be a reign of natural right, or justice; for it is plain 
that men must be taught to live together as neigh- 
bors before they will learn to love one another as 
brothers. So long as they defraud, oppress, and de- 
stroy each other, so long it may be presumed that 
they Avill suspect, hate, and retaliate. 

Again, anterior to the reign of justice, men must 
learn to govern themselves; for he who cannot re- 
strain his own appetites and passions, will violate 
the rights of others. 

Guizot, in his instructive lectures on " Civilization 
in Europe," regards modern progress as a twofold 
development — of the individual, as master; of him- 
self, and of the state, as the conservator of political 
and social order. He proves that the political ele- 
ment is the legacy of Roman civilization, while the 
individual element had its origin among the rude 
tribes of Germany. But the people of this country 
have been constantly enlarging the individual, and 
restricting the political power, until every man in 
our Union of sovereign States is himself a sovereign. 
Now, if we inquire how the dualism of European 
civilization, man and the state, has been reduced to 



29 

unity in America, man master of the state, we shall 
find, to use an illustration which may sound some- 
what professional, that, in their course of education, 
the people have advanced in this country to a school 
of higher grade, in which, as they are required to 
govern themselves more, they need the rod and fer- 
rule less. In European states, government is the 
centre of force, and the lines through which it moves 
diverge from the centre towards the circumference ; 
but, in our country, every individual will is a centre 
of force, and the conductors converge till they form, 
at a common centre, an aggregate national will, 
which the government must represent and express, 
or be powerless. In Europe, the people are, to a 
great extent, what government makes them ; in 
America, government is what the people make it. 
As the democratic form of government can be 
maintained wherever a majority of the people know 
how to protect public and private rights, and are 
sufficiently upright to respect them, so every man 
can govern himself, who comprehends his relations 
to his fellow-men and to God, and has moral power 
enough to obey the law of harmony which regu- 
lates them. Thus, the condition of absolute liberty 
is absolute obedience. The more perfectly men 
understand and obey the code written in their own 
hearts, the less will they need to be restrained by 
force and fear ; the more intelligent and moral they 
become, the milder will be the form of their go- 



30 

vernment. Their progress will be from despotism 
to limited monarchy, and from limited monarchy to 
democracy ; and when democracy shall have finished 
its appropriate work in the political education of any 
people, and science in their intellectual education, 
and Christianity in their moral education, they will 
find in individual autocracy the platform of a better 
civilization. 

To prepare for self-government such as this, men 
must first acquire personal freedom ; for as the strip- 
ling cannot learn to swim without touching the 
water, so no one can unfold his entire individuality 
until he is made, under limitations divinely author- 
ized, master of himself. I submit that this is the 
work of the American people: the establishment of 
personal freedom among ourselves, and its dissemi- 
nation in the world. 

The ruling motive of the Greeks was love of 
glory ; of the Romans, love of power ; of the English, 
love of wealth — and what is ours] The united 
voice of the nation, in every form of utterance, and 
in every manifestation of its daily life, answers — Love 
of Freedom. Whenever the cry of the oppressed and 
down-trodden is heard, whether from the slopes of 
the Andes, the Emerald Isle, or " the bright clime 
of battle and of song;" whether from the banks of 
the Vistula, the Tiber, or the Danube; and the arm 
of struggling freedom is stretched out to America 
for sympathy, our blood is stirred with quicker pul- 



31 

sations, and our voice speaks out to cheer and encou- 
rage. A few years since, we listened to the burning 
words of an exile, as with full heart, in tones half 
hopeful, half desponding, he pleaded in the audience 
of our country as a man would plead for his mother, 
in behalf of a fallen, and, so far as human foresight 
could extend, a ruined cause. What gave to the 
words of that zealous, though indiscreet patriot, their 
power to lead captive the hearts of men in spite of 
their judgment, and sway vast masses as with the 
wand of an enchanter'? Others have spoken as 
earnestly on other themes, with equal eloquence, 
and used arguments which showed less of the special 
pleader, yet who, since the days of Demosthenes, 
has produced such an effect upon such multitudes of 
people as the distinguished Magyar '? The power of 
eloquence does not reside in him alone who gives it 
form and expression. Unless the heart of the hearer 
respond to the tongue of the speaker, and emotion 
answer to emotion as face to face in a glass, the 
accents of Gabriel himself would fall powerless and 
dead, like an unknown language. But Kossuth 
spoke directly to our master passion, and therefore 
he called forth a response from the great heart of 
the nation. 

The freedom which we love, and which may be 
called American freedom, is not only national inde- 
pendence of masters, whether foreign or native, but 
also the personal liberty of every citizen as master 



32 

of his own actions, and, jointly with every other 
citizen, master of the State. And this liberty is 
something quite different from license; it is liberty 
in and under law, regulated both by written statutes, 
and by the unwritten law of reason and justice, of 
nature and God. 

This development of individual man, as personally 
free, and at the same time personally responsible; 
this union of liberty with obedience, which is one of 
the indispensable conditions of liberty, can be made 
nowhere but in a republic, and no republic is so fit 
to make it as ours. Our history and institutions, 
our habits of thinking, speaking, and acting — our 
very instincts and impulses, all prove that we are 
the men for this work; and, what is more to the 
point, that we are doing it. The Puritans, Quakers, 
and Cavaliers who colonized different sections of the 
country, came hither to enjoy their religious and 
political opinions undisturbed by arbitrary power. 
Their descendants took up arms in defence of the 
right to make their own laws, elect their own magis- 
trates, and levy their own taxes. They have made 
more liberal concessions to each other than were 
ever made before by any people to establish and pre- 
serve a national union. They have gradually ex- 
tended the right of suffrage, and have thus given 
legal form to their conviction that men, and not 
money, should govern. They have diminished the 
number of public offices which are held by executive 



33 

appointment, and increased the number of those 
which are obtained by popular election. They have 
made all posts of trust and honor accessible to the 
poor as well as to the rich; and when they have 
delegated their sovereignty for a limited time to 
magistrates of their choice, they make them under- 
stand very clearly that they are in office as the ser- 
vants, not as the masters of the people. These are 
the fruits of the progressive spirit of our institutions, 
which teach every man his value, his dignity, and 
his duty, and which place in his hands more and 
more power as he shows capacity to use it safely 
and wisely. 

The same tendency which is manifested in our 
political life, extends to our social, educational, and 
religious institutions. These all tend to elevate 
man, not as a constituent atom in the State, not as a 
drop in the bucket of a sect or party, but as inde- 
pendent, self-relying man. The poorest citizen of 
the republic knows and feels that he may claim 
the consideration due to a man, and if you withhold 
or deny him this, he will only wait till you are a 
candidate for office to make you sensible that he has 
the power of a man. 

The schoolboy is no longer taught to put implicit 
faith in the ipse dixit of any Pythagoras, but to 
reason for himself. The time has gone by when he 
could gain praises, or prizes, because he could re- 



34 

member and repeat; we now insist that he shall 
think and know. 

We hold, too, that faith is better sustained by 
works than by government. He who contributes 
voluntarily to support a pastor, reserves the right to 
judge of the quality and wholesomeness of the spi- 
ritual food he receives. He admits no obligation to 
believe the dogmas of the minister because he is the 
minister, but because, in his own private judgment, 
they are true. 

It is worthy of remark how quickly the political 
exiles from foreign lands, who take refuge among us, 
become charged to excess with that bold independ- 
ence which is characteristic of our people. They 
touch our soil, and are electrified with new and 
strange life. One, before he has been a week on our 
shores, undertakes to expound to us the esoteric 
meaning of Washington's Farewell Address. An- 
other, before he has had time to learn the distinction 
between Hards and Softs, Silver-Grays and Ada- 
mantines, reads the government a lecture on the 
courtesies of diplomatic correspondence, forgetful 
that the right to abuse our public functionaries on 
our own soil is an American monopoly. The same 
gentleman even proposes to make us the fulcrum of 
a lever to move the world; a proposition w^hich 
means, in plain English, that our country is to bear 
on its patient back the weight of the lever, with the 
world at one end, and our modern Archimedes at the 



35 

other! Issachar crouching clown between two bur- 
dens! Our adventurous refugee may learn, if he 
has not learned already, that whenever a fulcrum 
shall be found for the world-moving lever, the Ame- 
rican i^eople mean to have fast hold of the long arm 
where the power is applied. 

Perhaps we ought not to be surprised if emanci- 
pated mind, in the consciousness of its newly-dis- 
covered power, should run into some excesses. A 
troop of boys, just let loose from school, play pranks 
worthy of the pencil of Hogarth; and so, in the 
intoxication of freedom, we may commit extrava- 
o-ances which amuse or amaze the world, with the 
laudable purpose of demonstrating that we are not 
bound by prescriptive rules of behavior, and, there- 
fore, are not "old fogies." But the extravagances 
we commit are only straws upon the surface of so- 
ciety, which show the direction of its mighty cur- 
rent. They are not the drivelhng follies of dotage, 
but the freaks of youth's exuberant strength. They 
are the natural, though superfluous, offshoots of our 
vigorous and progressive civihzation; not parasites 
which exhaust its life, nor fungi which feed upon its 
decay. They only need to be pruned off, and the 
sturdy trunk will remain healthy and full of sap, to 
nourish the expanding branches of our prosperity, 
and mature the wholesome fruits of liberty. The 
brain of the nation does not grow giddy with the 
height it has so rapidly attained; its eye looks up- 



36 

ward and onward, still higher and further ; its heart 
beats time with the clock of progress, whose dial- 
fingers point the hour on the earth and heaven ; and 
all its aspirations are prophetic of an expansive and 
glorious future. 

And in that future there needs no prophet to 
foretell that our country will and must make its 
influence and power felt by other nations, in behalf 
of universal liberty. This is a part of our vocation, 
and we must fulfil it, or be traitors to humanity. 
Our example, and the resolute expression of our 
sympathy, have done, and will continue to do, much 
for those who honestly struggle against despotism; 
but the time has not yet arrived for the interpo- 
sition of the strong arm. The infant Hercules could 
strangle the serpents of Juno in his own cradle, but 
he waited till the thews and sinews of manhood had 
grown strong and hard before he went forth to crush 
the heads of the Hydra, and to grapple with the 
Nemean lion in his den. 

But that we shall have to go forth, at some future 
time — and that, perhaps, not very remote — the cham- 
pions of humanity, like Hercules, to exterminate the 
monsters that ravage the earth, I believe to be as 
inevitable as destiny. Despotism, sooner or later, 
will force the conflict upon us ; and, whenever that 
conflict shall come, the American people will carry 
with them into the world's battle the invincible 



37 

will of Prometheus, and the unconquerecl arm of 
Hercules. 

But let us not anticipate our destiny, nor precipi- 
tate events which the teeming future labors to bring 
forth. Before w^e listen again to any voice, however 
eloquent, which would persuade us to rush prema- 
turely into an armed crusade, let us show, before the 
excitement comes on, a Httle of the cool, practical 
common sense which we never fail to exhibit when 
the paroxysm is over. Whenever the sword of 
Washington shall be again invoked in the name of 
liberty, let us at least carefully inform ourselves 
whether it be such liberty as the sword of Washing- 
ton achieved. 

In conclusion, permit me to inquire whether there 
is anything in the political state of the world, or in 
our own condition, to bar our progress, or to prevent 
the realization of our country's prophetic thought^ 
God has not bound the will, either of individuals or 
nations, in the rigid chains of fate. A man may 
mistake or neglect his calling, or throw away his 
advantages, or pervert his powers to ignoble uses; 
and so may a whole people. In both cases, the un- 
profitable servant will be cast out, while his work 
and its Avages will be given to others. The hopes 
of humanity are now confided to our keeping ; but 
if we prove recreant to the trust — if we remove the 
old landmarks which our fathers have set up — if we 
permit local interests, or sectional jealousies, or self- 



38 

ish ambition to alienate one part of our country from 
another, and rend asunder the union of these States, 
God will raise up more faithful instruments to do 
his will, and place in their hands the standard of 
progress and the sceptre of power. 

The nation which commits suicide — and disunion 
would be suicide for us — perpetrates a crime of more 
terrible consequence than its own destruction, for it 
delays the purposes of the Great Ruler, and mars 
the fair proportions of humanity. 

But let our hopes prevail, and put to flight our 
fears ; for though, one after another, the great lights 
of the republic are extinguished, and with measured 
tread, and muffled drum, and saddened hearts we 
follow the dust of the fathers of our country to the 
grave, yet, wherever they repose — whether at Mount 
Vernon or Monticello, whether in the shades of 
Ashland or Quincy, or by the murmuring sea which 
moans its endless requiem around the tomb of the 
statesman of Marshfield — the lessons they have 
taught will not be forgotten, nor the legacy they 
have left us be scattered to the winds. 



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